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Elon Musk agrees to give Mel Gibson $100M for serious Odyssey film

Elon Musk endorsed funding Mel Gibson to direct a historically accurate Odyssey adaptation while his AI tool Grok Imagine works on creating its own version of the ancient Greek epic by year's end.

Eleni Papadaki-Van Der Merwe Staff Writer

JULY 22, 2026 AT 3:30 PM

Elon Musk has thrown his support behind a new, ambitious live-action adaptation of Homer’s Odyssey. Responding to a popular post on X, Musk said “I’m down” to the proposal of giving $100 million to acclaimed director Mel Gibson to helm a meticulously researched Odyssey film based on the epic.

The vision described by user @martianwyrdlord includes faithful ships, armor, and weapons from the Mycenaean era, a historically documented cast, dialogue taken directly from Homer’s original poem, and the entire film rendered in Homeric Greek.

I have nothing against AI generated feature length films, and in fact have been looking forward to this since the beginning of the year when the Amelia meme kicked off a wave of creative use of the medium, along with the incredible shorts made by @MeinGottNiles and @AlfredAlfer77… https://t.co/Nbkjg01zc2 pic.twitter.com/Rr1G0No7ss

— John Carter (@martianwyrdlord) July 22, 2026

This move comes shortly after Musk announced that Grok Imagine — xAI’s powerful image and video generation tool — will independently create a full-length, historically accurate Odyssey film before the end of 2026.

Mel Gibson, known for his uncompromising approach to historical storytelling in films like Braveheart and The Passion of the Christ, is considered an ideal choice for such an undertaking.

His attention to linguistic and cultural detail could bring unprecedented authenticity to the ancient Greek world — something many in the Greek community have been demanding for years from modern adaptations.

An Odyssey directed by Gibson could combine large-scale cinematic production with deep respect for the source material, potentially featuring reconstructed ancient Greek dialects and visuals based on archaeological findings.

While discussions about Gibson’s potential project gain momentum, Musk’s artificial intelligence initiative proceeds in parallel.

Grok Imagine aims to deliver a complete film faithful to Homer’s poetry and to the historical context of the Late Helladic period.

Before this year ends, Grok Imagine will make a full-length movie of The Odyssey that is historically accurate and true to the art of Homer https://t.co/bVHzUmY9WN

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 22, 2026

These developments are being closely watched by Greeks around the world. Whether through advanced artificial intelligence or through a traditional high-budget production helmed by a director like Mel Gibson, there is great anticipation that the Odyssey will finally receive the treatment it deserves, as reported by Greekcitytimes.

Eleni Papadaki-Van Der Merwe

She was born in 1986 in Johannesburg, South Africa. She is the granddaughter of an immigrant from Crete who settled in the Greek community of Johannesburg (one of the largest in Africa). She holds a bachelor’s degree in International Relations and Political Science from the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits) in Johannesburg and a master’s degree in Journalism from Rhodes University in Grahamstown. She began her career at English-language media outlets in Johannesburg, covering politics and economics, with a focus on issues related to migration and the diaspora. She moved to Athens in 2015 to “return to her roots,” initially to pursue graduate studies, and has remained there permanently. She is married to an Afrikaner; they have two children and live in the southern suburbs of Athens.